A Better Way To Both Work And Increase Earnings

By Jeff Irby

Harness the power of the Information "Overload" Age to improve employee productivity and well-being
By introducing new technology capable of making the average employee perform more efficiently and productively, today's "Information Age" has had a profound impact on our economy. The 21st century's sustained economic growth has been record breaking. Additionally, the strong rebound following both the Internet bubble burst and 9/11 attacks is a firm testament to the resiliency of this new economy.
In a speech delivered on September 6, 2007, Steve Forbes put this recent U.S. economic growth into perspective: "Just the amount of U.S. economic growth alone over recent years is in fact equivalent to four entire Chinese economies." This is a truly remarkable accomplishment; but what is the price for this economic miracle?
The impact of growth on our employees
Not without negative consequences, this recent expansion is taking its toll on the well-being of the employee by way of increased stress related diseases. The asset that is the foundation of the information economy is under attack by the very same economy. What is the culprit? Information overload.
From a corporate perspective, information overload is an absolute threat to earnings. In transitioning from the Industrial Age to the Information Age, the economic value of the organization has shifted from a highly controlled, centralized production of goods to a highly decentralized dependency on the simultaneous actions and thoughts of thousands of employees. It is in the brains of millions of workers that our economic value is being created.
Unfortunately, unlike that of a production line worker, the nature of Information Age labor has made the ability to measure the financial impact of any one individual's contribution quite difficult. Yet the very essence of earnings is found in the production of each individual worker.
In a 1999 study of the information overload phenomenon, British psychologist Dr. David Lewis coined the term "Information Fatigue Syndrome", believing that medical professionals would soon recognize this as a physical, medical condition.1
Furthermore, in 2004, Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, MD and psychiatrist, publish ed "Overloaded Circuits: Why Smart People Underperform" in Harvard Business Review, 2 more thoroughly following the work in 2006 by publishing an entire book critically examining information overload. 3
Dr. Hallowell, an expert in Attention Deficit Disorder, noticed a sharp spike in self referral patients in 1999 and 2000. The patients, convinced they had ADD, sought out Dr. Hallowell for treatment. Fascinatingly, the doctor discovered that over 80% of his patients did not in fact have clinical ADD.
Indeed, while the self referral patients were showing typical ADD symptoms, Dr. Hallowell concluded that he was actually observing the natural response of the human brain to its immediate environment. In other words, the information age was actually becoming the "information overload age" and our adaptive biological tendencies were taking over to cope with the situation. He titled the condition Attention Deficit Trait, ADT.
The symptoms of ADT are all too common in the workplace:
Irritability
Inability to focus
Careless errors
Lost creativity
Missed deadlines
Failed projects
Depression
Poor communication
These are all examples of personal characteristics which, if apparent in a potential employee, immediately cause an employer to pass on offering the individual a position. Yet companies are actually cultivating these characteristics each day in their workforce.
Overload and the cost to the company
A recent study published in Harvard Business Review4 found that the average worker today spends 40% of the work day merely processing information (see graph). This translates into only 60% of the average work day being spent on true value creation activities. 40% of the payroll costs are spent handling information overload-a tremendously large expense.
Ten years ago, Reuters conducted a study of 1,300 managers in the UK, USA, Hong Kong and Singapore in order to better understand "the politics of information". 5 One of the key findings was that 2 out of 3 respondents cited the overload of information as a leading source of both stress and lack of satisfaction in their work. They cited conditions of ill health, the canceling of social activities, and essentially feeling too tired to participate in pursuits outside of work. The remarkable fact is that these symptoms were being felt before the Internet, email, BlackBerry and cell phones were in such wide distribution. The situation has worsened considerably since 1996.
My work in this area has found that in any given group of employees, and across many industries, non-profit organizations, and government agencies, 75% of the population is currently experiencing burnout and overload. A sobering statistic from the 2006 HBR article, "Extreme Jobs", reveals that 36% of workers aged 25-34 say they will likely leave their jobs within a year, and 30% of workers aged 35-44 say the same thing. A 30% turnover rate for a company has a potentially devastating financial impact.
Identifying Information Overload
Diagnosing a company as to whether or not it is experiencing this phenomenon is really not a difficult task. The symptoms are incredibly apparent and readily available for observation. The following symptoms or conditions are indicators of overload:
Financial & Operational
Missed financial forecasts
Missed deadlines
Constant lack of digital storage space
High levels of unproductive email traffic
Unproductive meetings - generally perceived as a waste of time
Careless mistakes - high error rates in work products
Operation at a frantic pace in which every request is an emergency
People
High levels of turnover
High levels of tension and stress in meetings
Broken relationships - high rates of divorce among employees
High absenteeism
Low employee job satisfaction
Wide spread ADT symptoms in the workplace
Lack of relevance between annual goals and actual daily performance
The fact is that most people have not been trained in appropriate work habits, skills, or use of the appropriate technology to combat these issues. We are presently at the point in this era analogous to when the automobile industry found itself just prior to Henry Ford developing the production line. Up until that transformative moment in time, each car was hand crafted.
Today, the average worker operates with such autonomy that they are left to define their own tasks, often build their own tools, and then left to figure out how their production fits into the overall organizational work-stream. Often a quarter into a task, demands change and the worker is left to figure out how to adjust, or even forced to scrap his or her work to manage the new input. The pace of inflow has increased dramatically. The forty-hour work week is a fond memory and, for some, would be a welcome retreat and equivalent of a "part-time" job.
The corporate band-aid
In response to the devastatin g effects of information overload, companies often take a number of short term and immediate actions designed to address some of the symptoms. For example, a company will focus primarily on reducing turnover, perhaps instituting projects to "connect" with employees. Yet after the statistics begin to move in the correct direction, management moves onto the next task. However, to make the improvements sustainable, methods and systems must be put in place that will lead to high performing employees without destroying the employee in the process.
Similarly, it is no coincidence that the organizing industry (planners, closet organizers, gadgets, and services) is a multi-billion dollar business in the U.S. People who feel out of control are reaching out for a panacea to "organize" their lives.
Unfortunately, one short-term burst to "get organized" does not produce lasting performance. The old school management technique of working longer hours is taking its toll on the employee and driving down actual performance. It is time to change how we work in this new economy.
Training the organization to work in an era of overload
Recognizing that most companies currently face this challenge, I have developed a program aimed at installing permanent and lasting performance improvement. I call it Speed with Purpose. It is a method that trains employees to work more productively. In training, it provides the organization with common principles for operation. When implemented, it transforms the organization's approach to work, leading to better quality work products and highly satisfied employees.
The method is founded on the core principle that every action taken at the individual level ties back to the core values of the organization. If the actions do not make this connection, then the organization is operating in a state of incongruity. Thus operating in a less than optimal performance, the result is lowered earnings.
Corporate alignment with the individual's values, roles, goals, projects, and tasks is vitally important to ensure that what is intended to occur actually occurs at the task level and results in the desired earnings.
We operate on all of these various levels, from our overarching values to our specific tasks, every moment of every day. The degree to which we are aware of the various levels and are proactive in determining the tasks we focus on at any given point in time is what distinguishes a high performing individual from an underperforming individual.
A tremendous amount of time is spent each year on performance measurement and goal setting. The reason these systems often do not reflect the reality of the work environment is owing to the inability of individuals to manage these concepts on a daily basis.
Executives shy away from this topic because it seems too soft. The fact of the matter is that most executives do not know how to harden this concept into a critically interwoven aspect of operations for the organization. Programs exist, but the actual execution is flawed. Lacking are specific and actionable systems and workflows to make sure the alignment is made and stays connected. Speed with Purpose attacks this issue head on.
First, achieve alignment around the day to day activities
Today's corporate performance is an amalgam of thousands of independent employee actions. Unfortunately, most employees are left to:
Determine what they should work on
Decide when they should work on it
Define how their works fits into the overall system
Invent their own tools and processes as they go
Most of this work is being done at such a pace that it does not fit well into others' work streams. Without a common method, this misalignment causes large amounts of re-work, resulting in higher costs, missed deadlines, and lost market opportunities. Thus today's workers need guidance on how to work with each other and how to align what they value both with the company's values and their coworkers' efforts. Speed with Purpose provides the training to make this alignment a reality on a daily basis.
Alignment is only half of the battle
But alignment alone is not enough. The worker must also have specific direction regarding with whom to work, how to handle the volume of information, and how to connect their work to others. It is vitally important that the corporation establish operating principles and procedures that are repeatable by each employee across all of their tasks such that the thousands of individual actions tie together as intended.
I have defined a workflow process that fits any information age worker and any job - from the CEO to an administrative assistant. It optimizes time spent to produce better outcomes and reduce the amount of time spent on processing. The flow is simple and actionable. It is easy to follow and understand. It requires no special software. It does require the employee to think about each and every action he or she takes. This clear thinking is what ultimately creates the increased value.
The approach of tying the values, roles, goals, projects, and tasks using the workflow results in higher performing employees, sustainable performance, and a true method to fight information overload. It is flexible enough to be incorporated to individual work preferences, yet structured enough to provide a common approach that everyone can follow.
Once deployed, the method has the ability to permeate all aspects of the business from meetings, to email management, to delegation, to basic thinking. Employees who adopt this method find that they produce better quality work, completed in less time. Additionally, they experience a better overall sense of well-being. This method enables the worker to stay focused and relaxed while bringing about the desired outcomes.
Speed with Purpose essentially trains employees how to work well in the information age. It strives to reduce errors and stress, freeing the employee to engage their mind and produce better quality work.
Better way to work
Higher quality output
Tighter connection to the mission
Clearer mind that produces higher quality thinking
Tools to fight information overload
Similar to any activity that requires change in actions and thinking, the process requires a commitment by the individual and the organization to operate by this method. But upon commitment, the benefits far outweigh the effort required to implement the system.
Having a method to combat information overload provides sustainable performance and increased earnings over time. Simply put, companies can ask employees to do more work with fewer resources, knowing that they have the tools and skills to accomplish the task.
In our current age of information overload, it is vital for us to begin to respect the value of the knowledge worker, recognize overload as a threat to productivity and earnings, and make investments in human capital to equip employees to handle the data and use it to their advantage, rather than become overwhelmed and burned out.
Jeff Irby is the Principal at Speed with Purpose , a training company with a mission to change the way America works so that businesses thrive, employees perform at their very best, professional and personal relationships are rewarding, and families prosper. Based on thirty years of industry experience, Irby has taught thousands of individuals a unique method that combines work-life balance principles with a corresponding, tangible workflow to increase productivity and provide peace of mind. Speed with Purpose currently offers public and private label live-over-the-web and on-demand training, workshops, and one-on-one coaching. More information about Speed with Purpose can be found at http://www.speedwithpurpose.com
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The Relationship Between Employees, Customers, and Business Success

By Cynthia Reed

Wouldn't it be great if a magical crystal ball really existed that would reveal to you the secrets of what your customers want as well as the secret to keeping them returning to your business to increase profitability?
It does exist. Only there is nothing magical about it - it is scientific.
We all know that customer satisfaction is vital to the success of any business. In a recent article in The McKinsey Quarterly Marc Beaujean, Jonathan Davidson and Stacey Madge point out the proven fact that the costs of retaining current customers is much lower than the costs of acquiring new ones. In order to reveal the mystery of how to keep customers satisfied we must also be knowledgeable about the drivers of our employees’ behavior. Why? Because as Guy Herrington and Wendy Lomax point out in an article describing the results of their study on employee and customer satisfaction, the two are intimately related. According to their research and the research of many others, there is a direct relationship between employee job satisfaction and a customer’s repurchase intention.
This should not surprise anyone since most of us are both simultaneously someone’s employee as well as the customer of many other businesses. All we need to do is think about our own experiences to find examples of the importance of the relationship between employees and customers. Have you ever had a job you were very dissatisfied with? If so, how did it affect your attitude and your job performance? If you had direct contact with customers, how did it affect the way you interacted with them? And as a customer have you ever interacted with an employee that obviously did not like their job? Not only can their nonverbal behavior let you know that they do not want to be doing their job, but sometimes they will tell you directly!
I can’t tell you how many times I have asked clerks who were waiting on me how they were doing only to have them say something like, “I’ll be great in an hour and a half!” Thus they are indicating that they will be much better when they get off work and no longer have to wait on customers - like me. I have even had people helping me in customer service tell me that they were in the process of looking for another job! Incidents like these do not give a customer a favorable impression of a business and certainly do not contribute in a positive way to intent to return. In fact, such employee revelations can make customers feel uncomfortable. Psychologists tell us that this negative emotional state can become associated with your products or services and make the customer want to avoid them all together. However, Walter Greene, Gary Walls and Larry Schrest, in an article in the Journal of Services Marketing, state that organizations delivering high-quality service maintain or increase market share and they have a higher return on sales than do their competitors.
So we know that employee and customer satisfaction are interrelated and that their behaviors affect each other and the financial performance of the organization. Exactly how are they interrelated? The root causes, also known as drivers, of employee behavior influence overall employee satisfaction and employee willingness to recommend their place of employment to friends or family looking for work. The root causes of these two variables (employee satisfaction and willingness to recommend), in turn, influence overall customer satisfaction and the customer’s intent to return to the business. The root causes of customer satisfaction and intent to return ultimately drive financial performance.
Now, back to that crystal ball. Understanding the relationship between these variables is helpful. But how do you “fill in the blanks” with the specific root causes or drivers of employee and customer behavior? This is where science plays an indispensable role.
Scientific survey methods can enable you to “read the minds” of your employees and customers and “see into the future” in regards to their behavior. Keep in mind that it is best to start with your employees since their behavior and attitudes influence your customers. A scientifically sound survey instrument used conjunctively with state-of-the-art statistical techniques can enable you to identify a small number of drivers that are influencing the attitudes and behavior of your employees overall and more specifically, the root causes of their overall job satisfaction and willingness to recommend. Once these root causes are identified, your next step is to design and implement strategies that will improve your employees’ perceptions of these root causes. Improving employee perceptions of these root causes will have a positive influence on their behaviors and thus, you will see improvement in customer perceptions as well.
To further improve customer relations and, of course, profits you must also survey your customers. As with employee surveys, customer surveys are invaluable if they are scientifically sound. I am not referring to a 5-item questionnaire (like the too brief instruments I have seen at many of the businesses I patronize) but rather I am referring to a comprehensive, carefully worded instrument designed to measure both obvious and subtle influences of customer behavior. Organizational psychologists have specialized doctoral-level training in survey instrument design and are the best choice for this task.
Once you are knowledgeable about the root causes of your customers’ overall satisfaction and intent to return, you will have the “secrets” of increasing business and profits. The next part of the process is taking action on these root causes. Improving customer perceptions of the root causes will further increase their desire to continue doing business with your company. This leads to increases in sales and profits. Taking action on customer root causes is not the final step, however. The survey process needs to be ongoing. Why? There are two reasons. First, resurveying is the only way to know for sure if the strategies you implemented had the desired impact. Secondly, human behavior is not static: it changes over time. You must continue to keep your finger on the pulse of your employees and customers in order to stay abreast of the root causes of their attitudes and behaviors. By doing so, you can adjust your strategies when necessary and continue to see increased profits. Let’s look at what this process revealed when applied with a financial advising company.
Recently, the National Business Research Institute (NBRI) conducted a scientific survey of the employees and the customers of a large financial advising company. Starting with the employees, NBRI’s survey revealed three root causes of “Willingness to Recommend” that were driving almost half of the items on the employee survey. The item identified as the primary root cause was: “The degree of authority I have to do my work is appropriate.” The item identified as the secondary root cause was: “The amount of recognition I receive is appropriate.” “My supervisor treats me with respect” was the tertiary root cause. The root causes were positive, meaning they were having a statistically significant, positive impact on the items they influenced.
When overall employee satisfaction was examined, NBRI also found three root causes at this financial advising company. The first item identified as a root cause was: “Communications within the company are clear.” The second and third root causes were: “There is team spirit at this company” and “I understand what is expected of me in my job” respectively.
The second part of the survey, measuring customer attitudes and perceptions, revealed three root causes of overall customer satisfaction. In order of significance they included: “The company makes it easy for me to do business with them,” “The company provides me with accurate information,” and “The company understands my business.”
The last piece of crucial information was the root causes of customer intent to return. Once again, three root causes were identified. The primary root cause was “The company personnel exhibit integrity.” “Feedback from advisors is important to the company” and “The company makes competitive products available” were the second and third root causes, respectively.
It is coincidence that each of the variables studied at this company had three root causes. The number of root causes varies by sample as does the specific drivers identified. Any interventions made by this company that improve customer perceptions of the root causes will directly and significantly increase customer intent to return and therefore, will increase financial performance. The relationship is bi-directional meaning that decreases in perceptions of the root causes will directly decrease intent to return and will decrease financial performance.
Leonard Berry has written a book called Discovering the Soul of Service: The Nine Drivers of Sustainable Business Success. In the book he states that “the single most important factor in building a lasting service business is not a matter of savvy business practice, but of humane values.” As the title indicates, he goes on to identify nine drivers of business success. I both agree and disagree with his approach. I agree that in order to have a successful business you cannot place too much emphasis on the people involved; both the employees and the customers. The treatment of both will directly impact your success. However, I disagree with Berry’s identification of nine drivers. While there are issues that are common to employees of all businesses and industries and likewise issues common to customers of all types of businesses, drivers are unique. The only way to know what influences your employees and customers is to invest in scientific surveys. They will pay for themselves with the valuable information for business success that they provide.
By Cynthia K. S. Reed, Ph.D. Organizational Psychologist National Business Research Institute
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